Rob Cross offers a good description of collaborative overload (ref link included) and a diagnostic test.

During the 1990’s, organizations shifted from a functional-centric structure to a business process-centric structure. After completing difficult change management actions, benefits were harvested, e.g., reduced cycle time, decreased rework and improved customer satisfaction. Information overload can occur from individual actions during and outside of work as well as team activities. The cited references describe some root causes of collaboration overload and suggests remedies. The benefits from a business process-centric structure can be reduced by collaboration overload. It’s worth reading these materials to achieve your expectations from collaboration benefits. Marty B #IORGforum

Edward Tenner in his book The Efficiency Paradox: What Big Data Can’t Do [Alfred a Knopf, 2018] proposes that the efficiency from embedded Big Data Analytics can be counterproductive, e.g., missed opportunities, adopting new approaches, less intuitive thinking.

He provides a persuasive rationale for his position including many valuable examples. Tenner recommends that a selective combination of embedded algorithms and human intuition will improve judgments, learning and decision-making.

Our mental effort or workload is reduced when a set of information items or chunks are delivered as a story. Indeed our ability to recall the content also is improved. A new book Storynomics: Story-Driven Marketing in the Post-Advertising World by respected storyteller Robert McKee & Thomas Gerace (Twelvebooks.com; Hatchett Book Group; March 2018) provides a field-tested approach to creating effective stories.

Decades ago, I (others also?) proposed that Information was defined as more than “data relevant to the task,” but also an effective representation or format to understand and communicate the information effectively. Stories provide an extremely effective frame for delivering information content. A number of software modeling applications, e.g., Tableau and IBM WATSON Analytics have built-in capability for creating storyboards. These are elements that are more than a PPT deck–a set of slides integrated by a common storyline having a captivating beginning, followed by valuable content, and often concluded with some “call to action.” If you have not tried storyboarding to reduce the mental processing effort by your audience, jump onto the storytelling bandwagon.

Since January, I’ve been reading through the hundreds of reports that participants sent me about their experience with the digital declutter. I’ve been learning a lot from these case studies, but I want to focus here on one observation in particular that caught my attention: when freed from standard digital distractions, participants often overhauled their free time in massively positive ways.

One major issue is that everybody uses email, and email creates multiple “black holes” – isolated, locked repositories that email disappears into, never to be seen again, forever outside the reach of people who need it.

David M. Levy, who has lived his life between the “fast world” of high tech and the “slow world” of contemplation, offers a welcome guide to being more relaxed, attentive, and emotionally balanced, and more effective, while online.

In a series of exercises carefully designed to help readers observe and reflect on their own use, Levy has readers watch themselves closely while emailing and while multitasking, and also to experiment with unplugging for a specified period. Never prescriptive, the book opens up new avenues for self-inquiry and will allow readers—in the workplace, in the classroom, and in the privacy of their homes—to make meaningful and powerful changes.

The amount of multitasking students do during class and while studying is alarming.

Consistently, in response to surveys, more than 85% of students say they have their phones on in class, are looking at texts as they come in and during class, and between 70 and 90% say they respond to texts in class. And this is happening in courses with policies that prohibit or significantly curtail the use of electronic devices.

The fact that you’re doing it and you’re still successful doesn’t mean the opposite. It probably means that you don’t have enough time to do anything else. And that you’ll finish twice as more if you start to singletask.